WhatsApp executives meet government to discuss traceability

New Delhi: A team of executives from messaging app WhatsApp held detailed discussions with government officials on Tuesday about allowing traceability of messages that trigger public unrest, indicating the first sign of willingness by the Facebook-owned platform to engage further on what is a key demand by India.

The company, which offers end-toend encryption for users of its messaging app, has resisted demands by the Indian government to enable traceability of messages to curb rumours. Senior officials who briefed ET on the meeting — conducted on videoconference — said it was initiated by the US company, which is looking to deepen its business in one of the largest open markets in the world.

“Officials from WhatsApp were in listening mode and did not offer any kind of final response on the issues discussed,” said one of the people cited above who said the agenda was “technical issues on traceability”.

The meeting was proposed by WhatsApp director and associate general counsel Brian Hennessy and attended by a team of officials from the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY).

Though WhatsApp has steadfastly maintained that it will not break its encryption to allow tracing the origin of messages, executives at the meeting heard out the ministry’s demands and did not categorically say “no” or “yes” to traceability, sources told ET. “This was the first discussion and things are at a preliminary stage right now,” one official said. More such meetings are expected to follow in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp has been seeking government approval to launch its payment business in the country and has been under scrutiny over its compliance with the banking regulator’s diktat to store data of Indian users exclusively here.

In response to ET’s queries on the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting, a representative for WhatsApp said, “(The company) regularly engages with the government of India to discuss our commitment to maintaining a private and safe platform for people to communicate with one another.

We look forward to continued discussions on how we can work together towards these common goals.” On Thursday, the Australian lawmakers passed a bill that mandates companies such as Facebook and WhatsApp to decrypt messages to curb fake news and terrorism. The bill also allows police and intelligence agencies of Australia to access software of such messaging tools for surveillance.

APPOINTMENT OF LOCAL CEO Indian officials discussed all the issues earlier raised by the country’s union minister for electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad at this week’s meeting with WhatsApp executives, sources said. At an earlier meeting with WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels, Prasad asked the San Francisco-based company to register a legal entity in India and appoint a local CEO as well as a grievance officer based here, in addition to building a mechanism to identity the origin of messages.

During Daniels’ last visit to India in October, the minister had made clear that WhatsApp must station its grievance officer in the country and not in the US, and trace the origin of the messages if required by law enforcement agencies.

“On the issue of traceability, I emphasised that when we talk of traceability, we don’t talk of decrypting messages,” Prasad said after his meeting with Daniels. “We insist rather on location and identification of the sender of WhatsApp messages when such messages lead to provocation of violence, heinous offences and other serious crimes.”

The latest outreach to the Indian government by the US company comes weeks before Abhijit Bose takes charge of its India operations. Bose, who built a payments business in his startup Ezetap, is expected to take charge as India CEO of WhatsApp from January.

PRIVACY STANDARDS While it has acceded to the government demand of creating a local entity led by an India-based CEO, WhatsApp has resisted demands on traceability on the grounds that it would break its end-to-end encryption.

In an email interview to ET, Daniels said the messaging service is unlikely to give up on the “core” issue of maintaining its encryption standards. He had sought a “level playing field” for its services in India since its UPI-based payment service has been at the beta stage for a year now awaiting approvals for the full-fledged launch.

“Fighting misinformation is a societal challenge that requires action from all of us — technology companies, civil society, government and the users of our platforms. It’s important to understand that WhatsApp messages are endto-end encrypted and we do not know — and therefore cannot provide — the content or the originator of private messages. To do this, we would have to redesign our systems and revise our privacy standards to indiscriminately track user data. We think this is overly intrusive from a privacy perspective,” he said.

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